Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa remains deeply concerned about the prolonged delays to return the 920MW Unit 1 at Koeberg Nuclear power station due to inexplicable challenges on the back of deteriorating electricity generation capacity.
A frustrated Ramokgopa yesterday said he visited Koerberg on Thursday to get the update on the state of affairs at Africa’s only nuclear power station, and he was not impressed at all.
In December 2022, Eskom belatedly took off-line Unit 1 Koeberg for at least six months to replace three steam generators in a bid to extend the life of the power station for an additional 20 years at an estimated cost of R20 billion.
Unit 2 which continues to operate safely while Unit 1 is in this extended outage, will undergo a similar long outage to replace its three steam generators starting in the later part of this year.
However in May the power utility pushed the deadline for returning Unit 1 at the Koeberg by 45 days from the July deadline due to numerous reasons, including resource utilisation, safety incidents, physical interferences that were not anticipated, the delays in obtaining visas by foreign workers, crane failures, and others.
Ramokgopa yesterday said he went to Koeberg in a bid to determine a number of things, first of which was to understand the reasons for an extended outage slip in relation to Unit 1.
“As I speak I think the outage slip now is over 71 days, so this is something that should worry us. I must say that having gone to Koeberg and gotten the extensive presentation, I’m none the wiser today about the situation, and that’s why I’m elevating this to the board [of Eskom],” Ramokgopa said.
“From my discussion with the team at Koeberg, I’m absolutely not convinced that we are on track to return the Unit even at the time they have promised.
“Having accounted for the inherent risk and the delays, this presents a real danger of the overlap between the delayed return of Unit 1 and taking out Unit 2.
“If that were to happen, we are going to lose an aggregate of 1 840MW with two units having gone out at the same time. It’s something we are trying to avert [but] there are additional questions that were not responded to when I met with the team when we were at Koeberg, so I’m none the wiser about our ability to return this Unit 1 as promised or before we are able to take out Unit 2.
“That’s the risk that is still there, and I remain extremely worried with Koeberg,” he said
Eskom has applied to the National Nuclear Regulator (NRR) to extend the life of the Koeberg from 40 years to 60 years post its original generation life, which is July 21, 2024, but this hangs on the success of the steam generator replacement project.
Peter Becker, an energy activist and member of the Koeberg Alert Alliance, yesterday said he has been warning for a while that the R20bn budgeted for the revamp project was a “lie” based on outdated estimates made in 2010 when inflation and the rand/dollar exchange rate were low.
Becker said Eskom had initially said the job would take 5 months, but now it was somewhere around 14 months per unit, and this meant another cost escalation.
“We know R20bn is a lie. R20bn was 2010 estimate when the US dollar was R7.50 and is now around R19. Inflation would make that R40bn. So that would mean another tripling,” Becker said.
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